So the book I took with me to read in the US was In the Light of what we Know by Zia Haider Rahman. This is a pretty heavy book, filled with mathematics and philosophy, life stories, the invasion in Iraq, and the areas where all these things meet. It is not a book you can easily read after say, hiking in 40 degrees Celsius and driving 300 kilometers on single-lane roads through the desert. Or on a nine hour flight sandwiched between a chatty Scotsman who will fall asleep on your knees (seriously...) and a ten year old French girl who will fall asleep on your shoulder.
So I decided to get something a bit lighter, both in content and in weight, and I ended up buying the film edition of Me before you. This was partly based on sentimental value, as we saw the film while we were in the US, and partly on the fact that the Barnes&Nobles was huge and I had really no idea where to begin.
Me before you is a romantic novel by any standard. One could even call it a chick flick, as it is aimed at chicks, and you can flick through it in a day without ever feeling the need to put it down to digest its contents. It is the unlikely story of poor girl from working class family goes to work as a caregiver for a handsome rich guy who has been paralysed from the neck down in a traffic accident. And of course, they clash, they fight, they hate each other, until inevitably they fall in love. As Disney already taught us years ago:
Tale as old as time
True as it can be
Barely even friends
Then somebody bends
Unexpectedly
Just a little change
Small to say the least
Both a little scared
Neither one prepared
Beauty and the beast
Ever just the same
Ever a surprise
Ever as before and
Ever just as sure
As the sun will rise
Funny, as that is exactly how it is (really, Disney movies tell you all you need to know about life). Even after watching the movie, you feel a tinge of fear; will they realise what they mean to each other? Why are they so blind? Why are they so stubborn? And then the sigh of relief when it all works out.
Only in this case, it doesn't really work out. He is still paralysed, and in pain, and completely unable to accept his new life. And without spoilering the end for you, this is a very interesting film to watch in a southern US state, where some things are a lot less accepted than here in the Netherlands.
Anyway, why am I droning on about this fluff novel when I usually write about the Great Literary Works? Because it was fun. I read most of it in a single day (technically longer, as during that day I went through 9 timezones, so let's put it at 24 hours). Not only because I did not need to put it down, I did not want to. It is a great read, even though you can clearly see all the suspense and cliffhanger tricks that Dan Brown and others are so fond of putting in their novels too. This is great writing on a whole other level, but that doesn't make it any less great. And I could snobbishly look down on it, but why bother? It's not like 'Literature' is so much better or wholesome than novels like these. Looking at how many people read them, one could argue that these novels are culturally far more important. And where The Great Literary Novel teaches you something about all aspects of life, these novels teach you something about dreams coming true, and love, and still believing in all those Disney fairy tales of long ago.
So yeah, read it. You will cry, I promise you that.
In the meantime, I have just bought the sequel, which is probably just rush job to cash in on the movie success. And won't read it straight away, because you can only take so much light stuff before you need something you can really get your teeth into again. But whenever I feel the need for some light, improbable romance, it will be ready and waiting.
Saturday, 9 July 2016
Saturday, 2 July 2016
Road tripping to National Parks
So for two weeks, I found myself in the US. In the southwestern part of the US, specifically; Arizona, Utah, Nevada (and some New Mexico and Colorado thrown in at Four Corners).
How did I end up there? A friend of mine had a conference in DC, and we decided to do some road tripping afterwards. Genuine road tripping, that is, no plans or reservations or anything, just driving around and seeing where we'd end up. So we had a place of arrival and departure (Phoenix Sky Harbour airport, although we arrived and departed separately due to financial reasons) and a rental car, and that was basically it. We'd go wherever the road would take us.
Turns out, it took us to National Parks. Loads and loads of National Parks. On the third day, some friendly ranger told us that we could actually buy an Annual Park Pass for just 80$, which would save us entrance fees to most National Parks (except for those on Navajo land, as they can still charge), and after that, we were really unstoppable.
There is so much beautiful nature in that part of the world. Vast stretches of empty nothingness, with very few roads or villages in between. We drove the length of our own country several times over, and saw nothing but nature with a capital N (okay, and some flattened prairedogs, coyotes, etc. But most of it was alive and not on the road). And it's so diverse! You can be driving through a flowering cactus filled desert one minute, and stand at the edge of a pine forest-filled canyon the next. I've done the middle of Australia, and that has a lot of nothing too, but it's mostly the same red-orangy desert nothing. Here, you never knew what to expect in the next 100 miles.
If we would have been a bit better prepared, we could have done some very nice long hikes, but as things were, 35+ is just too many degrees to start trumping about unprepared. We did some really nice and rewarding short hikes to arches and canyons and the tops of volcanoes, and otherwise saw the rest of it from the ideally located view points (in the beginning, we'd take pictures from the road, but then we found out that if ever there was a nice few, there would be a scenic view point for us to get out and snap away as we liked).
So, any favourites? Of course! If you're in for petrified forests (and believe me, you are), go to Petrified Forest National Park, and take the scenic drive past thousand year old trees (no collecting, or you'll be cursed forever). If you're into arches and other weirdly shaped rocks and geographical features, go to Arches National Park (see what they did there? Even if you're completely unprepared, the name of the park will just tell you what to expect. And in the park itself, you had stuff like 'sheep rock'; a rock shaped like a sheep, 'balanced rock'; a rock balanced on top of a thin spire, and 'delicate arch'; a... you get the gist by now). Visit Bryce or Zion National Parks for the best hiking in slightly lower temperatures. And of course Monument Valley, where I managed not to wreck our rental car on the 'dirt' (=gravel) roads.
All in all, we drove 4500 kilometres. We did not venture into California, as it has too many great things to fit in just two weeks, and decided that we'll have to come back for that some other time. Probably a bit earlier in the season, as the tourist crowds really started to get going towards the end. But still, two weeks of being so totally removed from your own 'habitat', under the vast blue skies and the big empty roads; I wouldn't mind coming back next year!
How did I end up there? A friend of mine had a conference in DC, and we decided to do some road tripping afterwards. Genuine road tripping, that is, no plans or reservations or anything, just driving around and seeing where we'd end up. So we had a place of arrival and departure (Phoenix Sky Harbour airport, although we arrived and departed separately due to financial reasons) and a rental car, and that was basically it. We'd go wherever the road would take us.
Turns out, it took us to National Parks. Loads and loads of National Parks. On the third day, some friendly ranger told us that we could actually buy an Annual Park Pass for just 80$, which would save us entrance fees to most National Parks (except for those on Navajo land, as they can still charge), and after that, we were really unstoppable.
There is so much beautiful nature in that part of the world. Vast stretches of empty nothingness, with very few roads or villages in between. We drove the length of our own country several times over, and saw nothing but nature with a capital N (okay, and some flattened prairedogs, coyotes, etc. But most of it was alive and not on the road). And it's so diverse! You can be driving through a flowering cactus filled desert one minute, and stand at the edge of a pine forest-filled canyon the next. I've done the middle of Australia, and that has a lot of nothing too, but it's mostly the same red-orangy desert nothing. Here, you never knew what to expect in the next 100 miles.
If we would have been a bit better prepared, we could have done some very nice long hikes, but as things were, 35+ is just too many degrees to start trumping about unprepared. We did some really nice and rewarding short hikes to arches and canyons and the tops of volcanoes, and otherwise saw the rest of it from the ideally located view points (in the beginning, we'd take pictures from the road, but then we found out that if ever there was a nice few, there would be a scenic view point for us to get out and snap away as we liked).
So, any favourites? Of course! If you're in for petrified forests (and believe me, you are), go to Petrified Forest National Park, and take the scenic drive past thousand year old trees (no collecting, or you'll be cursed forever). If you're into arches and other weirdly shaped rocks and geographical features, go to Arches National Park (see what they did there? Even if you're completely unprepared, the name of the park will just tell you what to expect. And in the park itself, you had stuff like 'sheep rock'; a rock shaped like a sheep, 'balanced rock'; a rock balanced on top of a thin spire, and 'delicate arch'; a... you get the gist by now). Visit Bryce or Zion National Parks for the best hiking in slightly lower temperatures. And of course Monument Valley, where I managed not to wreck our rental car on the 'dirt' (=gravel) roads.
All in all, we drove 4500 kilometres. We did not venture into California, as it has too many great things to fit in just two weeks, and decided that we'll have to come back for that some other time. Probably a bit earlier in the season, as the tourist crowds really started to get going towards the end. But still, two weeks of being so totally removed from your own 'habitat', under the vast blue skies and the big empty roads; I wouldn't mind coming back next year!
Wednesday, 1 June 2016
Garden murder
So I'd been cultivating my windowsill vegetable patch, which wasn't all that great space-wise, but it was growing along nicely. But as you may have gathered from the title, it has suffered from a murderer. A serial plant killer.
To refresh your memory, the plants I had growing were spinach, green beans, cherry tomato, endive, courgette, watermelon, fennel, radish, gherkin and red beet. The spinach was starting to get into flower, so I picked all the leaves that were edible (about 10 or so), put them in a salad, and had a nice meal of them. I took pictures, but they have been lost along with my poor bricked phone.
Next up, green beans. I hadn't even noticed, but some of the little white flowers had started to drop off, and where they had fallen off small green beans were growing. The plant itself was also pretty small, so I had to pick some of the beans to prevent the thing from collapsing, and to make sure the other tiny beans were getting some nutrition. So I ate 3 of my own green beans in my risotto last Sunday, and I was pretty well able to distinguish my own from the other supermarket-bought ones (they tasted better, but the texture was not so great, a bit rubbery/chewy). And I still have some beans left growing, so I will make another mini-meal out of those sometime soon.
Those were the success stories.
Another photo I have lost, less unfortunately, is the one of my spinach plant after my killer cat knocked it off the window sill. There were dirt and roots and leaves everywhere, and he'd started to eat from it as well. Then, I came home to find all the beet plants on the floor, because he had pulled them out of the ground and just left them to die. I could have put those back, but they still had very small roots (no beets to be found) and I didn't think they would make it as they'd already gone pretty limp.
At that point, I moved some of the more precarious plants (the beans, the watermelon, courgette and gherkin) upstairs to my bedroom, to prevent them from being slaughtered as well. I thought the serial plant killer wouldn't touch my tomatoes (nightshade, should be poisonous), endive and radishes (bitter) and fennel (too big a pot).
I was right on two accounts, but one day I came home to find my endive completely eaten away, just a few sad little green parts visible. Not that I particularly like endive, it was the plant I was least enthusiastic about getting (maybe apart from the watermelon on practical accounts), but still, it was part of my garden. And today I came home to find most of my radishes uprooted. Not that there were any radishes underneath, just pretty small root systems, so again it hadn't really been growing properly, but it's the principle that matters.
Anyway, spinach, beets, endive and radishes have been murdered off quietly and efficiently, mostly while I was at work. I'm starting to think the cat was suffering from the lack of attention due to my caring for these plants, although the lack of development on the beets and radishes may tell you something about how green my fingers really are. So maybe it was just plain boredom. Or puberty.
Five down, including the thyme that perished earlier, six to go. The beans are still growing nicely, which is good. The cherry tomato is getting pretty big, but no signs of flowers as of yet. The fennel looks like it's doing okay, but I have no idea what's going on beneath the earth; it may be another failed attempt at a root vegetable. The courgette, gherkin and watermelon are getting a bit out of hand, and I'm thinking of moving those to my parents, as their own veg patch failed to deliver and they have the space to actually grow these things.
All in all, not really something I could eat myself full on, let alone make a living out of, but still, any result is a better result than I expected on the outset. And the lack of snails and other natural hazards is more than made up for by my own feline plant danger.
To refresh your memory, the plants I had growing were spinach, green beans, cherry tomato, endive, courgette, watermelon, fennel, radish, gherkin and red beet. The spinach was starting to get into flower, so I picked all the leaves that were edible (about 10 or so), put them in a salad, and had a nice meal of them. I took pictures, but they have been lost along with my poor bricked phone.
Next up, green beans. I hadn't even noticed, but some of the little white flowers had started to drop off, and where they had fallen off small green beans were growing. The plant itself was also pretty small, so I had to pick some of the beans to prevent the thing from collapsing, and to make sure the other tiny beans were getting some nutrition. So I ate 3 of my own green beans in my risotto last Sunday, and I was pretty well able to distinguish my own from the other supermarket-bought ones (they tasted better, but the texture was not so great, a bit rubbery/chewy). And I still have some beans left growing, so I will make another mini-meal out of those sometime soon.
Those were the success stories.
Another photo I have lost, less unfortunately, is the one of my spinach plant after my killer cat knocked it off the window sill. There were dirt and roots and leaves everywhere, and he'd started to eat from it as well. Then, I came home to find all the beet plants on the floor, because he had pulled them out of the ground and just left them to die. I could have put those back, but they still had very small roots (no beets to be found) and I didn't think they would make it as they'd already gone pretty limp.
At that point, I moved some of the more precarious plants (the beans, the watermelon, courgette and gherkin) upstairs to my bedroom, to prevent them from being slaughtered as well. I thought the serial plant killer wouldn't touch my tomatoes (nightshade, should be poisonous), endive and radishes (bitter) and fennel (too big a pot).
I was right on two accounts, but one day I came home to find my endive completely eaten away, just a few sad little green parts visible. Not that I particularly like endive, it was the plant I was least enthusiastic about getting (maybe apart from the watermelon on practical accounts), but still, it was part of my garden. And today I came home to find most of my radishes uprooted. Not that there were any radishes underneath, just pretty small root systems, so again it hadn't really been growing properly, but it's the principle that matters.
Anyway, spinach, beets, endive and radishes have been murdered off quietly and efficiently, mostly while I was at work. I'm starting to think the cat was suffering from the lack of attention due to my caring for these plants, although the lack of development on the beets and radishes may tell you something about how green my fingers really are. So maybe it was just plain boredom. Or puberty.
Five down, including the thyme that perished earlier, six to go. The beans are still growing nicely, which is good. The cherry tomato is getting pretty big, but no signs of flowers as of yet. The fennel looks like it's doing okay, but I have no idea what's going on beneath the earth; it may be another failed attempt at a root vegetable. The courgette, gherkin and watermelon are getting a bit out of hand, and I'm thinking of moving those to my parents, as their own veg patch failed to deliver and they have the space to actually grow these things.
All in all, not really something I could eat myself full on, let alone make a living out of, but still, any result is a better result than I expected on the outset. And the lack of snails and other natural hazards is more than made up for by my own feline plant danger.
Sunday, 29 May 2016
Bricked
Last Friday, my phone died. It was acting weird the evening before, constantly rebooting while I was installing updates, but it had performed its proper alarm clock function in the morning. Then it somehow turned itself off, and never came back on again. Apparently in techy terms, it's 'bricked'; no more use for it than for a brick.
Now I had been mentioning to people that I wanted to get a new phone sometime soon, because it was starting to get slow and full and obnoxious, but this wasn't really the way I wanted that to go. Same thing happened with my laptop; I mentioned wanting to get a new one, and it promptly got stolen. Somehow the universe and I are getting our signals mixed.
Anyway, luckily I still had my work phone on me, so I could contact the people I was at a convention with. But other than that, I had nothing. I couldn't contact people, I couldn't check my apps, I couldn't even register how many steps I was taking. Also, I knew there would be a pretty big chance that all my pictures and contacts (the only phone number I know by heart is my parent's land line, otherwise I'm blank) and chat history would be lost forever. Sounds like the perfect time to have a major freak out, doesn't it?
But I didn't freak out.
I felt uncomfortable about not being able to reach out to people, to have a way of connecting with them. If someone somewhere needed to tell me something, or had a problem, they couldn't reach me. But otherwise, it didn't feel like a major drama. It was the same when my laptop crashed: I felt a mild panic about having lost so much data, only to remember that most of that data didn't really matter that much anyway. I mean, I would be really really sore if I lost all my pictures, but I make regular back-ups of those, and otherwise; what's there to miss? Lots of music files I didn't really listen to since I installed Spotify. Several games I'd been halfheartedly playing, and gained some levels in, but lost interest in months ago. My chat history. Now that is a thing, because I am one for going back and rereading old conversations when I have nothing to do (long train journeys without wifi). So that will be a miss, although people are already working hard to get me a new chat history. Also, my personalised settings; my ring tone, background picture, etc. Some of those have been the same for years, and I will miss them now they're gone. I may get them back, in time, but they're not the first priority.
So, in short; my life didn't fall apart when my phone broke down, it just got a bit less cluttered and data-heavy. Also, it feels good to know that the major function of my phone, for me, is to be in touch with the rest of the world. That was the thing I missed, not some game or Facebook or whatever. And although I missed being able to communicate, having a quiet weekend without contact wasn't so bad either. Makes me feel like less tech-addicted than I feared!
Now I had been mentioning to people that I wanted to get a new phone sometime soon, because it was starting to get slow and full and obnoxious, but this wasn't really the way I wanted that to go. Same thing happened with my laptop; I mentioned wanting to get a new one, and it promptly got stolen. Somehow the universe and I are getting our signals mixed.
Anyway, luckily I still had my work phone on me, so I could contact the people I was at a convention with. But other than that, I had nothing. I couldn't contact people, I couldn't check my apps, I couldn't even register how many steps I was taking. Also, I knew there would be a pretty big chance that all my pictures and contacts (the only phone number I know by heart is my parent's land line, otherwise I'm blank) and chat history would be lost forever. Sounds like the perfect time to have a major freak out, doesn't it?
But I didn't freak out.
I felt uncomfortable about not being able to reach out to people, to have a way of connecting with them. If someone somewhere needed to tell me something, or had a problem, they couldn't reach me. But otherwise, it didn't feel like a major drama. It was the same when my laptop crashed: I felt a mild panic about having lost so much data, only to remember that most of that data didn't really matter that much anyway. I mean, I would be really really sore if I lost all my pictures, but I make regular back-ups of those, and otherwise; what's there to miss? Lots of music files I didn't really listen to since I installed Spotify. Several games I'd been halfheartedly playing, and gained some levels in, but lost interest in months ago. My chat history. Now that is a thing, because I am one for going back and rereading old conversations when I have nothing to do (long train journeys without wifi). So that will be a miss, although people are already working hard to get me a new chat history. Also, my personalised settings; my ring tone, background picture, etc. Some of those have been the same for years, and I will miss them now they're gone. I may get them back, in time, but they're not the first priority.
So, in short; my life didn't fall apart when my phone broke down, it just got a bit less cluttered and data-heavy. Also, it feels good to know that the major function of my phone, for me, is to be in touch with the rest of the world. That was the thing I missed, not some game or Facebook or whatever. And although I missed being able to communicate, having a quiet weekend without contact wasn't so bad either. Makes me feel like less tech-addicted than I feared!
Friday, 20 May 2016
Anna Karenina
For the past couple of months, I have been reading one of the absolute classics of 19th century literature: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. In English, although it is a Russian novel, because a) my Russian isn't that good, and b) careful Googling told me that this was the best recent translation of the novel. It's 800+ pages, and it took me a while, also because I read three Dutch non-fiction books in between (none of which is really worth mentioning). It took a while not because it was difficult, or boring, but because it was simply very very long. I can take my time reading a novel because I think it is especially beautiful, and I want to give it the attention it deserves, and I can take my time because there isn't any way of getting through it quicker. This was a case of the latter.
Anyway, Anna Karenina. I had not seen the film nor did I know anything about this story, except for the fact that it was about someone called Anna Karenina (whom I pictured somewhat like Keira Knightley, probably because of the film trailer). Neither was really true. I mean, there is a character called Anna Karenina in the novel, and she does play a pretty big part, but then there are dozens of other characters who also play pretty big parts. And Anna influences them, in a way, but not all of them, and some characters never really meet her at all. She is pretty radical in her actions and thoughts, but so are some of the others. So although she is supposed to be the heroine, you could just as well have called the thing "Konstantin Levin" or "Pre-revolution upper class Russians" (although Tolstoy of course didn't know about the revolution at the time of writing). But I can see why he went with Anna Karenina, and I don't mind the title, but it kind of gives you the wrong expectations. Also, from the description, she looks nothing like Keira Knightley.
On a side note; Russian names are really impossible. I mean, the women I can somehow grasp, because they are Anna and Kitty and Dolly; nice, logical names. They do have three or four other names, and nicknames (Kitty and Dolly are short for Ekaterina Alexandrova Sherbatsky and Daria Alexandrova Oblonsky), but at least you can keep them apart. But the men! There were two who I just referred to in my head as AA and SA, and every time the perspective switched to one of them, I had to remind myself whether they were Anna's or Dolly's husband. When they were in the same room, or even worse; talking to each other, I really couldn't keep up who was who. And in some cases, I didn't realise that two separate names actually belonged to the same character until I was a couple of chapters down the line. They should really sort that out.
So what is the novel about? Life, in general. People living their lives. People thinking about their lives, how they live them, and what they can and want to change. The main events of life; birth, love, marriage, death, and in the case of the Russian aristocracy: drinking, gambling, horse racing, and a lot of debt. Not much really happens, that is to say, no invasions or wars or life-changing events, except for those mentioned above. And the really life-changing stuff that does happen is described in a few lines, almost off-hand, like 'oh yes, and then he died'.
The thing that gets most attention is what the characters think about all these events. And they think a lot. Some of it is just Tolstoys own political propaganda, but most are really universal human thoughts and emotions; the stuff that keeps people up at night, or the way people think about each other. The decisions that they make, and what they think of those decisions, and how they justify things to themselves. Most of it is recognisable, sometimes almost scarily so. Whether he writes about a man going to court his future wife, a woman thinking about her new-born child, or a man sitting with his dying brother; these characters come to life, they are real people, with real thoughts and emotions. It took me a while to get through, but this was not because of those sweeping, strongly emotional passages; sometimes 30+ pages (description only, no dialogue) would whisk by as I was carried along on someone's musings.
So I can see why this novel survived and became one of the classics; it is about the fundamental human emotions and experiences. There is a lot of stuff in between, some of which would be edited out if the thing would be written now, but that's the nineteenth century novel for you. Between the lines and main events, you can find what makes humans human. And since Russia 1878, that hasn't changed all that much.
Sunday, 8 May 2016
Windowsill veg patches
Remember those veg patches I told you about last year? You could get them this year as well, if you spent 15 Euroes on groceries (someone in the marketing deparment must have gotten higher targets). Now I don't usually spend that much on my shopping, but other people I know do, and they were kind enough to donate their veg patches to me, because of my supposed 'green fingers'. So in the end, I got 11 veg patches, which I was going to raise in a gardenless home.
Also living in this gardenless home is a hooligan kitty, who likes to eat everything it can, and otherwise destroy things it can't. So I put my veg patches in a little plastic greenhouse, to protect them from kitty harm.
Cute, hey?
They are: red beet, green beans, cherry tomato, spinach, radish, fennel, thyme, endive, gherkin, courgette, and watermelon. Yes, watermelon.
As you can see, in this picture some of the plants had already started to grow, while others were hiding underground. I put those plants big enough (according to the very precise instructions on the little cards) into bigger pots, planting them out to their individiual wishes. They were growing nicely, apparently safe from feline harm.
In the end, I had four little patches left in the green house: thyme, gherkin, courgette and watermelon. And this is when the kitty disaster struck. One day, I had just gone out to get some groceries, and when I got back I found the thyme upside down, and all the little cards pulled out. Which meant that I had no idea which was the gherkin, which the courgette, and which the watermelon. I made an educated guess, but I'm still not sure whether I am raising the correct plants under the correct name...
Anyway, they all sprouted! 100% success rate!
I planted out the remaining mystery plants to their (probable) specifications, and for a couple of weeks now, my window sill has looked like a mini jungle.
You may notice that the thyme is missing. After my 100% success rate in sprouting, I somewhat failed in raising, with the thyme never really growing properly, and finally just disappearing into it's container. But still, 10 plants is more than enough for just a windowsill.
The spinach is starting to flower, which means I will have to eat it soon. All the other plants are still miles away from producing anything, but it looks nice, and apart from a bit of watering and turning (they really like to grow towards the sun) they're no bother at all. And best of all; no slugs!
Also living in this gardenless home is a hooligan kitty, who likes to eat everything it can, and otherwise destroy things it can't. So I put my veg patches in a little plastic greenhouse, to protect them from kitty harm.
 |
| Veg patches in protective casing |
Cute, hey?
They are: red beet, green beans, cherry tomato, spinach, radish, fennel, thyme, endive, gherkin, courgette, and watermelon. Yes, watermelon.
As you can see, in this picture some of the plants had already started to grow, while others were hiding underground. I put those plants big enough (according to the very precise instructions on the little cards) into bigger pots, planting them out to their individiual wishes. They were growing nicely, apparently safe from feline harm.
In the end, I had four little patches left in the green house: thyme, gherkin, courgette and watermelon. And this is when the kitty disaster struck. One day, I had just gone out to get some groceries, and when I got back I found the thyme upside down, and all the little cards pulled out. Which meant that I had no idea which was the gherkin, which the courgette, and which the watermelon. I made an educated guess, but I'm still not sure whether I am raising the correct plants under the correct name...
Anyway, they all sprouted! 100% success rate!
I planted out the remaining mystery plants to their (probable) specifications, and for a couple of weeks now, my window sill has looked like a mini jungle.
 |
| Fennel, radishes, green beans, spinach, cherry tomato, and red beets. |
 |
| Endive, possibly watermelon, possibly courgette, possibly gherkin. |
The spinach is starting to flower, which means I will have to eat it soon. All the other plants are still miles away from producing anything, but it looks nice, and apart from a bit of watering and turning (they really like to grow towards the sun) they're no bother at all. And best of all; no slugs!
Monday, 2 May 2016
Musical investigations
Wow, it's been a while. And in all of that while, nothing really interesting happened, which is probably why I haven't felt like writing a blog post. That is to say, lots of things happened, but they were mostly along the lines of work, meeting with friends, watching movies, etc etc. And I've been reading the same novel (Anna Karenina) for at least two months, so not much to say about that either.
But! There are developments on the musical side of things. Some time ago I wrote about discovering Spotify, and coming to the conclusion that I treated it pretty much the same as any other technology; stick to what you know. But things, they are achanging.
First of all, some big company decided that they would share all The Beatles songs with the rest of the world anyway, which was pretty nice. But more importantly, I've been looking up new music myself. Not really 'by myself' as such, but I've been getting recommendations from others, or hearing songs on commercials, or on the radio (and checking which song they are by using the nifty app SoundHound) and I've added those to my music. And then (this is the magical part) I go to that artist's page, and listen to their other music. Not all of it, of course, but the top 10 songs at least.
Which has led me to discover the following artists:
Ludovico Einaudi: man, he is brilliant. I know nothing about this man, apart from the fact that his song Life was used in a commercial. So I checked him out, and found a treasure trove of beautiful instrumental music, most of it just a piano. My absolute favourite is Nuvole Bianchi, which has almost 40 million listens on Spotify, and is hauntingly beautiful. I'm still trying to find the sheet music, to be able to play it.
John Mayer: I thought this was some guy from the 60s, but apparently he's quite a bit more recent. I heard Heartbreak Warfare on the radio, which I loved, and then I checked out some of his other songs, which were really nice as well. Mellow, but not sleepily so. He can get a bit whiny, but then we skip to:
Modest Mouse: can you believe this band name? Too cute! Anyway, someone recommended Dashboard (which has a very funny video clip too), and then I looked some more on their page, and found out they're the guys from Float On, which was also used in a commercial (sad, how many songs I know mostly from tv ads).
Muse: I've had lots of friends who were into Muse, but somehow I'd never really listened to any songs. Now that I have, I find them a bit too aggressive for what I would normally listen to, but there are times when I like that uptempo shouty stuff, for example when I try to hammer out some minutes for meetings.
I could go on and on (The National, Wolf People, The Raconteurs), but most of them are kind of the same music as I've always loved (Ludovico Eunaudi is like Howard Shore and Philip Glass, and all the other guys are your regular middle of the road band, leaning slightly towards the countryesque). So technically, I haven't really evolved that much, especially when you compare it to the friend who has suddenly decided she's into 'gangster rap'. But still, small steps towards more musical open mindedness.
But! There are developments on the musical side of things. Some time ago I wrote about discovering Spotify, and coming to the conclusion that I treated it pretty much the same as any other technology; stick to what you know. But things, they are achanging.
First of all, some big company decided that they would share all The Beatles songs with the rest of the world anyway, which was pretty nice. But more importantly, I've been looking up new music myself. Not really 'by myself' as such, but I've been getting recommendations from others, or hearing songs on commercials, or on the radio (and checking which song they are by using the nifty app SoundHound) and I've added those to my music. And then (this is the magical part) I go to that artist's page, and listen to their other music. Not all of it, of course, but the top 10 songs at least.
Which has led me to discover the following artists:
Ludovico Einaudi: man, he is brilliant. I know nothing about this man, apart from the fact that his song Life was used in a commercial. So I checked him out, and found a treasure trove of beautiful instrumental music, most of it just a piano. My absolute favourite is Nuvole Bianchi, which has almost 40 million listens on Spotify, and is hauntingly beautiful. I'm still trying to find the sheet music, to be able to play it.
John Mayer: I thought this was some guy from the 60s, but apparently he's quite a bit more recent. I heard Heartbreak Warfare on the radio, which I loved, and then I checked out some of his other songs, which were really nice as well. Mellow, but not sleepily so. He can get a bit whiny, but then we skip to:
Modest Mouse: can you believe this band name? Too cute! Anyway, someone recommended Dashboard (which has a very funny video clip too), and then I looked some more on their page, and found out they're the guys from Float On, which was also used in a commercial (sad, how many songs I know mostly from tv ads).
Muse: I've had lots of friends who were into Muse, but somehow I'd never really listened to any songs. Now that I have, I find them a bit too aggressive for what I would normally listen to, but there are times when I like that uptempo shouty stuff, for example when I try to hammer out some minutes for meetings.
I could go on and on (The National, Wolf People, The Raconteurs), but most of them are kind of the same music as I've always loved (Ludovico Eunaudi is like Howard Shore and Philip Glass, and all the other guys are your regular middle of the road band, leaning slightly towards the countryesque). So technically, I haven't really evolved that much, especially when you compare it to the friend who has suddenly decided she's into 'gangster rap'. But still, small steps towards more musical open mindedness.
Monday, 7 March 2016
Morocco
Last week I spent travelling through Morocco. This is not as daring or adventurous as it may sound, because 1) I was with an organised group that took great care of me, and 2) Morocco is not the dangerous country many take it for. It is one of the most colourful, friendly, welcoming and diverse I've ever seen. From snow in the peaks to heat in the desert, from rainy shores to sunny green fields; there is something for everyone.
I'd been planning to go on holiday with a friend for a while, and we were 'going to the sun', as they say here; going someplace with nicer weather than our own. A relaxing beach holiday was out of the question as we both go completely crazy when forced to sit still and do nothing, so a more adventurous plan was quickly hatched; the four imperial cities of Morocco (the other option was Israel, but I really want to take more time for that). After some careful comparisons, there was really only one holiday that could fit both of our schedules and visited all the places we wanted to see. We were a very small group of only six, the other four being ladies of between 55 and 65. Our tour guide was 28. In effect, the three of us were on holiday with four mothers. It was great. We got along surprisingly well, there were no major fights or discussions, and I think everybody had a good time.
And the country itself was great. We visited Casablanca, Rabat, Meknes, Fez, and Marrakesh, and although we did so in only 6 days, I didn't feel rushed or overwhelmed once. This may be because of the carefully balanced trip, but I think it is mainly because we had some great local guides, apart from the one that stayed with us the entire trip.
We saw mosques, mausoleums, mellahs, royal palaces, gates, medinas, souks, tanneries, potteries, and every kind of shop under the sun. We saw high mountains and beautiful valleys, waterfalls and oceans, goat herds and pampered cats, and everything in between. We saw old men in long djellabas on donkey carts, young women at the wheel of a modern car, iPhone clasped to their ears, and everything in between. We had fabulous food, great views, and warm welcomes everywhere. I try to make a point of not visiting countries twice if I still have others on the list, but Morocco is definitely a place I want to return to. It's a small, warm, colourful universe in its own.
Saturday, 20 February 2016
A God in Ruins
It's been a while since I've written anything about books here, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading them. And the last book I read, A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson, was one of those books which after a few chapters I decided to read really slowly and attentively, because it is great and meaningful and complex and beautiful, and I didn't want to rush through it. Meaning that so far this year, it has been the best book I've read.
A God in Ruins runs parallel to Life after Life, which I'd read and loved a couple of years ago. In that novel, Ursula Todd lives her live again and again, trying to kill Adolf Hitler before he rises to power. It has vivid descriptions of the Blitz, as well as beautiful imagery of the British upper middle class in the twenties and thirties. In this novel, (a 'companion piece', rather than a sequel, according to Kate Atkinson) we follow the life of Teddy Todd, Ursula's younger brother (and one of the more sympathetic characters of Life after Life). It doesn't give any conclusions as to which of Ursula's lives finally became the 'true' one, we just have to see this as one version of reality. In this, Ted becomes a bomber pilot in the War, flying his Halifax deep into German country to bomb industrial areas (at first) and helpless civilians (as the war progresses). But it is about more than just WWII, as several other chapters tell of his life after the war, his marriage, his daughter Viola, and his grandchildren Bertie and Sunny. We don't just follow Ted, but Viola, Bertie, and Sunny as well. They are wildly different characters, each a product of their parents, their upbringing, and the time they live in. Their relationships don't always run smoothly, with the children often being the smarter ones than their parents, but as we (the reader) can look into their heads and see their histories and the decisions that made them who they are, we can sympathise with all of them.
The novel has some wonderful phrases that will stick in my mind for a while. "When the time came people stopped trying to forget the war, and started trying to remember it"; clearly painting the difference between Ted's generation and Viola's; between the people who lived through the war and don't need to remember to make sure something like that never happens again, and those born long after it, who can't really appreciate the sacrifices made by there parents. "Bertie loved her grandfather. Her grandfather loved Bertie. It was the simplest arrangement." closely followed by "Sunny loved his grandfather. His grandfather loved Sunny. It was the most complicated arrangement." Two sets of almost identical phrases, showing the difference in two very complex interpersonal relationships that form the backbone of the book.
Then there are the many literary, cultural, and historical allusions that run through the novel. I'm sure I missed at least half of these, as many are to Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress, and it's been a while since I read those, but the ones I did get brought a smile to my face. And you can easily read it without knowing about the extra layer. Smart little things like; "'Out,' she said, shooing Izzy toward the front door, and again, 'Out' 'Damed spot,' Hugh murmured." will ring a familiar bell, even if you've never read or seen Macbeth.
And in the end, as Kate Atkinson writes in her afterword, the novel really is about fiction, about telling stories, about living in a fictional world or living a version of yourself that you have decided to become. Especially Viola has a tendency to make the world the way she likes it to be, and to point to the fictional actions of others as the cause for her own character and place in life. Which can be a frustrating read, especially when you know Ted's or Bertie's or Sunny's version of the events, but every good book has characters you love to hate. And in the end, you can be the judge. What was real, and what wasn't?
A God in Ruins runs parallel to Life after Life, which I'd read and loved a couple of years ago. In that novel, Ursula Todd lives her live again and again, trying to kill Adolf Hitler before he rises to power. It has vivid descriptions of the Blitz, as well as beautiful imagery of the British upper middle class in the twenties and thirties. In this novel, (a 'companion piece', rather than a sequel, according to Kate Atkinson) we follow the life of Teddy Todd, Ursula's younger brother (and one of the more sympathetic characters of Life after Life). It doesn't give any conclusions as to which of Ursula's lives finally became the 'true' one, we just have to see this as one version of reality. In this, Ted becomes a bomber pilot in the War, flying his Halifax deep into German country to bomb industrial areas (at first) and helpless civilians (as the war progresses). But it is about more than just WWII, as several other chapters tell of his life after the war, his marriage, his daughter Viola, and his grandchildren Bertie and Sunny. We don't just follow Ted, but Viola, Bertie, and Sunny as well. They are wildly different characters, each a product of their parents, their upbringing, and the time they live in. Their relationships don't always run smoothly, with the children often being the smarter ones than their parents, but as we (the reader) can look into their heads and see their histories and the decisions that made them who they are, we can sympathise with all of them.
The novel has some wonderful phrases that will stick in my mind for a while. "When the time came people stopped trying to forget the war, and started trying to remember it"; clearly painting the difference between Ted's generation and Viola's; between the people who lived through the war and don't need to remember to make sure something like that never happens again, and those born long after it, who can't really appreciate the sacrifices made by there parents. "Bertie loved her grandfather. Her grandfather loved Bertie. It was the simplest arrangement." closely followed by "Sunny loved his grandfather. His grandfather loved Sunny. It was the most complicated arrangement." Two sets of almost identical phrases, showing the difference in two very complex interpersonal relationships that form the backbone of the book.
Then there are the many literary, cultural, and historical allusions that run through the novel. I'm sure I missed at least half of these, as many are to Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress, and it's been a while since I read those, but the ones I did get brought a smile to my face. And you can easily read it without knowing about the extra layer. Smart little things like; "'Out,' she said, shooing Izzy toward the front door, and again, 'Out' 'Damed spot,' Hugh murmured." will ring a familiar bell, even if you've never read or seen Macbeth.
And in the end, as Kate Atkinson writes in her afterword, the novel really is about fiction, about telling stories, about living in a fictional world or living a version of yourself that you have decided to become. Especially Viola has a tendency to make the world the way she likes it to be, and to point to the fictional actions of others as the cause for her own character and place in life. Which can be a frustrating read, especially when you know Ted's or Bertie's or Sunny's version of the events, but every good book has characters you love to hate. And in the end, you can be the judge. What was real, and what wasn't?
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
Walklogger
About a year ago, when it was just as grey and rainy and windy as it is now, we (that is to say, me and my colleagues) were all sitting around whining about how much we wished for it to be spring so we could go outside and be active, instead of being inside and being depressed, We all felt bloated from the holidays, but nobody really bothered to do something about that, because we were still in our large comfy winter clothes. But we did feel inactive, and lazy. And then I remembered that someone had once told me that you had to take 10,000 steps each day to be healthy. So we looked online, and although not everybody was in agreement (the argument is still going strong), most people did agree that walking is good for your health, fitness, blood pressure, and what not. So we all decided to try and walk 10,000 steps a day.
Now you have to remember that we all have jobs which involve sitting behind the computer a lot. Or sitting in meetings a lot. Or listening to presentations a lot. And I mean, really a lot. But still, we could give it a shot. So we all downloaded some sort of app to our smartphones to track our steps (those in the possession of an iPhone didn't need to do that, because Apple already automatically registers your movements and probably uses that to some sort of advantage). I chose Walklogger, simply because someone else was also using that and said it was a good app.
I don't know how many steps I took the first day, but I know it was nowhere near 10,000. Turns out, 10,000 steps takes about 1.5 hours of walking, depending on how fast you walk. We were really competitive, sharing walking scores and trying to beat each other to a higher step count, but the only one who ever really made the 10,000 was the one person who already took a walk each morning after breakfast and before work. So we decided to go on lunch walks, instead of eating in the canteen, and that really boosted our step count. Still no 10k, but we were doing good. But then some people had meetings, or it was raining, or there was a nice lunch presentation, and we didn't really take the walks anymore. After about two months, nobody was sharing their step counts anymore, and most people had removed the app from their phone.
But not me. Not that I'm aiming for 10,000 every day, that would be absurdly optimistic. My daily step count aim is 2,000, with at least 3 days of 5,000 steps (Walklogger gives you a bronze medal when you reach 5,000, and a silver at 8,000, and a gold medal at 10,000) every week. Which seems to be a pretty managaeble goal, if I think to take my smartphone with me everytime I walk. In the office, I do take a lot of small walks (150 steps to and from the coffee machine) that are often not counted because I don't have my phone with me. And there are some days when I easily manage 10,000, when I take a walk in the woods or walk to the city centre for some shopping. Then there are other days when I don't even reach 1,000, although usually that's because I've forgotten my phone somewhere. But it does mean that when I can choose between walking or biking, and there is no time constraint, I more often go on foot. Which is a nice change, even though it won't really make me that much healthier in the long run.
So Walklogger works for me, but you can probably use any walk logging app in the store, I haven't tried any of the others. I like the medal system, although it is a bit disappointing that you don't get any extra medals for walking say 15,000 or 20,000 steps (my record high was around 23,000, the day I walked the Great Wall of China). I like how it shows when you were walking, using little graphs that go up when you take more consequetive steps. And it shows you how many steps you took in this month and year. Somehow, Thursday is the day I walk the least, although I have no clue as to why that is.
And it's just fun, collecting the numbers, and batteling against your lazy self to reach those 2,000 steps. As for today, I have exactly 306 steps to go.
Now you have to remember that we all have jobs which involve sitting behind the computer a lot. Or sitting in meetings a lot. Or listening to presentations a lot. And I mean, really a lot. But still, we could give it a shot. So we all downloaded some sort of app to our smartphones to track our steps (those in the possession of an iPhone didn't need to do that, because Apple already automatically registers your movements and probably uses that to some sort of advantage). I chose Walklogger, simply because someone else was also using that and said it was a good app.
I don't know how many steps I took the first day, but I know it was nowhere near 10,000. Turns out, 10,000 steps takes about 1.5 hours of walking, depending on how fast you walk. We were really competitive, sharing walking scores and trying to beat each other to a higher step count, but the only one who ever really made the 10,000 was the one person who already took a walk each morning after breakfast and before work. So we decided to go on lunch walks, instead of eating in the canteen, and that really boosted our step count. Still no 10k, but we were doing good. But then some people had meetings, or it was raining, or there was a nice lunch presentation, and we didn't really take the walks anymore. After about two months, nobody was sharing their step counts anymore, and most people had removed the app from their phone.
But not me. Not that I'm aiming for 10,000 every day, that would be absurdly optimistic. My daily step count aim is 2,000, with at least 3 days of 5,000 steps (Walklogger gives you a bronze medal when you reach 5,000, and a silver at 8,000, and a gold medal at 10,000) every week. Which seems to be a pretty managaeble goal, if I think to take my smartphone with me everytime I walk. In the office, I do take a lot of small walks (150 steps to and from the coffee machine) that are often not counted because I don't have my phone with me. And there are some days when I easily manage 10,000, when I take a walk in the woods or walk to the city centre for some shopping. Then there are other days when I don't even reach 1,000, although usually that's because I've forgotten my phone somewhere. But it does mean that when I can choose between walking or biking, and there is no time constraint, I more often go on foot. Which is a nice change, even though it won't really make me that much healthier in the long run.
So Walklogger works for me, but you can probably use any walk logging app in the store, I haven't tried any of the others. I like the medal system, although it is a bit disappointing that you don't get any extra medals for walking say 15,000 or 20,000 steps (my record high was around 23,000, the day I walked the Great Wall of China). I like how it shows when you were walking, using little graphs that go up when you take more consequetive steps. And it shows you how many steps you took in this month and year. Somehow, Thursday is the day I walk the least, although I have no clue as to why that is.
And it's just fun, collecting the numbers, and batteling against your lazy self to reach those 2,000 steps. As for today, I have exactly 306 steps to go.
Monday, 18 January 2016
Now what?
January and February are officially the 'Now What?' months in NaNoWriMo; months in which you realise that you've written a 50,000 (more or less) word novel, and realise that you actually have to do something with it. Or not, but in NaNo-land, that's not really an option.
So they offer various things you can do in these Now What?-months. Most of these involve connecting you to published authors and other NaNo writers, so you can find support in their stories and suggestions. As mentioned before, I'm not a big partaker of the NaNo group process, so this isn't really for me. But there is one thing I did like, and that is their 'Revision Promise'. It reads as follows:
I, talented author, hereby pledge to edit and revise my manuscript in these, the months following the word storm that was National Novel Writing Month.
By agreeing to this legally binding document, I swear to undertake the unluxurious process of editing the first draft of my novel. I understand that this process can be messy and disheartening, but ultimately just as rewarding as writing it all the first time.
I have replaced all creative implements (pens, pencils, keyboards, touchscreens, quills, and hunks of charcoal) at my workspace with destructive ones (erasers, backspace keys, white-out, and comically large mallets). I will refine and chop sentences, paragraphs, and chapters with impartial ferocity. Above all, I promise to regard my novel with a critical but not cruel eye, for it is a work of my one-and-only imagination and deserves to be made even better.
Sounds good, doesn't it?
So that is what I'm going to do; I will revise what I have written. I could also pledge myself to finish the story (always a difficult thing for me), but there are too many inconsistencies and gaps and badly-written things in the first few chapters for that to work. So first; revision. Let's see what this thing can look like when I spend my time thinking about it, instead of hammering out as many words as possible, as quickly as possible. And if I still like it at the end of the revision, I may even feel inspired to finish it.
But let's take this one step at a time.
So they offer various things you can do in these Now What?-months. Most of these involve connecting you to published authors and other NaNo writers, so you can find support in their stories and suggestions. As mentioned before, I'm not a big partaker of the NaNo group process, so this isn't really for me. But there is one thing I did like, and that is their 'Revision Promise'. It reads as follows:
I, talented author, hereby pledge to edit and revise my manuscript in these, the months following the word storm that was National Novel Writing Month.
By agreeing to this legally binding document, I swear to undertake the unluxurious process of editing the first draft of my novel. I understand that this process can be messy and disheartening, but ultimately just as rewarding as writing it all the first time.
I have replaced all creative implements (pens, pencils, keyboards, touchscreens, quills, and hunks of charcoal) at my workspace with destructive ones (erasers, backspace keys, white-out, and comically large mallets). I will refine and chop sentences, paragraphs, and chapters with impartial ferocity. Above all, I promise to regard my novel with a critical but not cruel eye, for it is a work of my one-and-only imagination and deserves to be made even better.
Sounds good, doesn't it?
So that is what I'm going to do; I will revise what I have written. I could also pledge myself to finish the story (always a difficult thing for me), but there are too many inconsistencies and gaps and badly-written things in the first few chapters for that to work. So first; revision. Let's see what this thing can look like when I spend my time thinking about it, instead of hammering out as many words as possible, as quickly as possible. And if I still like it at the end of the revision, I may even feel inspired to finish it.
But let's take this one step at a time.
The Art of Asking
So one of the books I've finished so far this year is The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer. I thought this book was going to be about how Amanda thought she had to be a Strong and Independent Person/Woman and then saw the light and realised that sometimes, it isn't so bad to ask anyone for help, and now she will tell the reader the how and why of things. As it turned out, she realised this in the first 10 pages of the book, and the rest of it was mostly about her dating Neil Gaiman, her breaking up with her record label and discovering crowd funding, and her sleeping on other people's couches while blogging and tweeting and generally sharing every detail of her private life with the whole world. But luckily, in between all that, there were some gems of wisdom and writing.
So who is this Amanda Palmer? I only recently found out that she, and her former band The Dresden Dolls, are not as famous as I'd always thought, so a short recap may be in order. Amanda Palmer is a singer, songwriter, feminist, and the wife of Neil Gaiman. Which is how I first heard of her, because I've been following Neil on his blog for a couple of years now, and at some point, Amanda popped up (they've been married for a while now, and they recently had their first child). I didn't really check her out at that point, but then one of my best friends mentioned that he loves The Dresden Dolls, so I decided to listen to some of their music, and some of their music is really nice. For the most part, it's a bit too loud/shouty/in-your-face for my taste, but a noticeable exception to this rule is Delilah, which is by far my favourite song. Since then, Amanda has gone solo, and released a couple of albums, one of which contains her playing Radiohead songs on her ukulele.
Anyway, Neil had mentioned Amanda's book on his blog, and when I saw it laying around at the house of the aforementioned friend (in Iceland, which meant he had found it worthwhile to drag the thing 3000 km across the sea) I decided I had to read it. So I did. And I was a bit disappointed, as you may have gathered from the first paragraph, because it was all about Amanda Palmer. Amanda Palmer likes talking/writing/blogging/singing/apping about herself a lot. She also doesn't really like any kind of formal structure, so the book is really all over the place, with long and short bits mixed up and jumping in time and adding new people until you get completely confused. But then there are some bits that do make sense, in a novel-writing kind of way, and she mentions that Neil helped her along, so you can see his influence there, I guess. Also, it does tie up nicely in the end, with a sort of happy ending.
But in between all the rambling and the endless descriptions of tours and couches and tour buses, there are some really nice bits. Amanda mentions The Fraud Police, who will at some point come knocking at your door and tell you that it's all been fun and games, but now you really have to stop pretending you can write/sing/make any difference in the world. It's that secret feeling we all have, of being 'found out' some day, of being discovered as a fraud and then cast aside by everybody. The way she described this, felt really real to me. This is about not trusting yourself, or trusting your own talent. Then there is the bit about trusting others, and you don't have to stand on a pedestal as a living statue, or sleep on other people's couches, to experience that other people are, in general, trustworthy. But it's good to realise that sometimes, and the examples she gives are all true and honest and worthwhile. Finally, the theme of the title, asking for help, is connected with both trusting yourself and trusting others. For example, she's had a really hard time accepting money from Neil when she was in a tight spot, because she felt that she had to be able to be independent. Although she asked random people for all kinds of help, asking the ones you love, the ones whose opinion really matters, is the most difficult. And during these parts, I really loved her, and the book, and the message she was carrying out.
But then there were two afterwords by people saying 'you may not believe this, but this is really the way Amanda is! She's not faking it! Believe me, everything in this book, it's very very true!'. Which spoiled the whole thing, because up until that point, I'd never had any doubt that this all was true. But by pointing it out, by having other famous people write an afterword in which they state that the true things you have just read are really true, you're kind of defeating your own point. Because why couldn't we just trust you on that, Amanda?
So who is this Amanda Palmer? I only recently found out that she, and her former band The Dresden Dolls, are not as famous as I'd always thought, so a short recap may be in order. Amanda Palmer is a singer, songwriter, feminist, and the wife of Neil Gaiman. Which is how I first heard of her, because I've been following Neil on his blog for a couple of years now, and at some point, Amanda popped up (they've been married for a while now, and they recently had their first child). I didn't really check her out at that point, but then one of my best friends mentioned that he loves The Dresden Dolls, so I decided to listen to some of their music, and some of their music is really nice. For the most part, it's a bit too loud/shouty/in-your-face for my taste, but a noticeable exception to this rule is Delilah, which is by far my favourite song. Since then, Amanda has gone solo, and released a couple of albums, one of which contains her playing Radiohead songs on her ukulele.
Anyway, Neil had mentioned Amanda's book on his blog, and when I saw it laying around at the house of the aforementioned friend (in Iceland, which meant he had found it worthwhile to drag the thing 3000 km across the sea) I decided I had to read it. So I did. And I was a bit disappointed, as you may have gathered from the first paragraph, because it was all about Amanda Palmer. Amanda Palmer likes talking/writing/blogging/singing/apping about herself a lot. She also doesn't really like any kind of formal structure, so the book is really all over the place, with long and short bits mixed up and jumping in time and adding new people until you get completely confused. But then there are some bits that do make sense, in a novel-writing kind of way, and she mentions that Neil helped her along, so you can see his influence there, I guess. Also, it does tie up nicely in the end, with a sort of happy ending.
But in between all the rambling and the endless descriptions of tours and couches and tour buses, there are some really nice bits. Amanda mentions The Fraud Police, who will at some point come knocking at your door and tell you that it's all been fun and games, but now you really have to stop pretending you can write/sing/make any difference in the world. It's that secret feeling we all have, of being 'found out' some day, of being discovered as a fraud and then cast aside by everybody. The way she described this, felt really real to me. This is about not trusting yourself, or trusting your own talent. Then there is the bit about trusting others, and you don't have to stand on a pedestal as a living statue, or sleep on other people's couches, to experience that other people are, in general, trustworthy. But it's good to realise that sometimes, and the examples she gives are all true and honest and worthwhile. Finally, the theme of the title, asking for help, is connected with both trusting yourself and trusting others. For example, she's had a really hard time accepting money from Neil when she was in a tight spot, because she felt that she had to be able to be independent. Although she asked random people for all kinds of help, asking the ones you love, the ones whose opinion really matters, is the most difficult. And during these parts, I really loved her, and the book, and the message she was carrying out.
But then there were two afterwords by people saying 'you may not believe this, but this is really the way Amanda is! She's not faking it! Believe me, everything in this book, it's very very true!'. Which spoiled the whole thing, because up until that point, I'd never had any doubt that this all was true. But by pointing it out, by having other famous people write an afterword in which they state that the true things you have just read are really true, you're kind of defeating your own point. Because why couldn't we just trust you on that, Amanda?
Sunday, 10 January 2016
Disney to the rescue
In writing tutorials, I've been told again and again; write what you know. It's easier to shape a character that has the same personality traits as yourself, or lives in the same town, or has the same experiences. Look at any writer; many elements in their novels will be in some way or another autobiographical. The familiarity of these settings and experiences makes it easier to process your thoughts into written words.
I've discovered that the same is true for playing the piano.
With my move, my (digital) piano has found a place in the middle of the living room, which means I literally and figuratively cannot really get around it anymore. Which also means I've been playing more than ever, shaping the familiar tunes from more than 10 years ago until they sound like they're supposed to again. But I've also been a bit stuck, with no new pieces to play. I can try and dedicate myself to those pieces from my original books that I didn't really like to begin with, but I'm afraid my motivation will drop below zero when I start to struggle with stuff I don't even think sounds nice.
Cue Walt Disney. Or to be more precise: The New Illustrated Treasury of Disney Songs. For piano, of course. A fellow piano player lend this to me over Christmas, because nothing gives you the proper Christmassy feel like a long-remembered Disney song, and as soon as I'd played a couple of songs I decided I had to hold on to this book for as long as I could. Because when you know what something has to sound like, when you're familiar with the melody and the timings and the lyrics, it's so much easier to play.
I started off just playing the melody, which is right-hand only, and only 1 note at a time. This is pretty easy, and you do recognise the song, but doesn't really give you the feeling you're actually playing the piano. It's like the Christmas songs I used to play on my recorder (that's 'blokfluit' for you Dutchies); officially it's 'music', but it feels like it's neither here nor there. So I put myself to playing the whole right-hand part, which contains those single notes from the melody line, but adds extra notes. This started to sound a lot better, but some notes were really dissonant, and felt wrong. So I tried to add the left-hand part, which is always the difficult bit, and by playing really slowly I've managed to get two songs (Part Of Your World from The Little Mermaid and A Whole New World from Aladdin) to pretty decent quality. These are both films I watched to death when I was a kid, so I know every little thing about them (albeit in Dutch; the English lyrics are so much better, and more logical, than the translated Dutch version), so I know when I'm playing things right. Which makes it so much easier to get to grips with a new song, but also; it makes playing fun again. Which is what it's supposed to be.
With these two songs under my belt, I'm looking for the next contender to start practising: probably something from The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (all 'Disney Renaissance' films, which qualifies me as a proper nineties kid). These are a bit more difficult (I'm really amazed at the depth of these songs; Disney does take children seriously, in the musical sense at least), and will probably be a bit of a challenge, but as they bring back the fun in playing the piano, I really can't wait.
I've discovered that the same is true for playing the piano.
With my move, my (digital) piano has found a place in the middle of the living room, which means I literally and figuratively cannot really get around it anymore. Which also means I've been playing more than ever, shaping the familiar tunes from more than 10 years ago until they sound like they're supposed to again. But I've also been a bit stuck, with no new pieces to play. I can try and dedicate myself to those pieces from my original books that I didn't really like to begin with, but I'm afraid my motivation will drop below zero when I start to struggle with stuff I don't even think sounds nice.
Cue Walt Disney. Or to be more precise: The New Illustrated Treasury of Disney Songs. For piano, of course. A fellow piano player lend this to me over Christmas, because nothing gives you the proper Christmassy feel like a long-remembered Disney song, and as soon as I'd played a couple of songs I decided I had to hold on to this book for as long as I could. Because when you know what something has to sound like, when you're familiar with the melody and the timings and the lyrics, it's so much easier to play.
I started off just playing the melody, which is right-hand only, and only 1 note at a time. This is pretty easy, and you do recognise the song, but doesn't really give you the feeling you're actually playing the piano. It's like the Christmas songs I used to play on my recorder (that's 'blokfluit' for you Dutchies); officially it's 'music', but it feels like it's neither here nor there. So I put myself to playing the whole right-hand part, which contains those single notes from the melody line, but adds extra notes. This started to sound a lot better, but some notes were really dissonant, and felt wrong. So I tried to add the left-hand part, which is always the difficult bit, and by playing really slowly I've managed to get two songs (Part Of Your World from The Little Mermaid and A Whole New World from Aladdin) to pretty decent quality. These are both films I watched to death when I was a kid, so I know every little thing about them (albeit in Dutch; the English lyrics are so much better, and more logical, than the translated Dutch version), so I know when I'm playing things right. Which makes it so much easier to get to grips with a new song, but also; it makes playing fun again. Which is what it's supposed to be.
With these two songs under my belt, I'm looking for the next contender to start practising: probably something from The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (all 'Disney Renaissance' films, which qualifies me as a proper nineties kid). These are a bit more difficult (I'm really amazed at the depth of these songs; Disney does take children seriously, in the musical sense at least), and will probably be a bit of a challenge, but as they bring back the fun in playing the piano, I really can't wait.
Sunday, 3 January 2016
52 Books Challenge - The lists
Now I'm not normally a person for lists or ratings or 'highlights of the past year' or something, but given that I have 41 books which I can group into a couple of meaningful categories, I'm going to give it a go in this instance. These are the things that popped into my head while looking over the books I'd read this year.
Best English novel
1 The Children Act
2 Black Swan Green
3 One Day
Pretty typical, in a year where I'm reading only new novels, that my favourite novels still come from that group of male British authors that I've loved over the years. Must be my style. Also, the only Ian McEwan novel I read all year (and the first novel I read this year) is still a firm number 1. New to this list is of course Dave Nicholls, who I hadn't read before this year, but am now a really big fan of.
Best Dutch novel
1 Tongkat
2 Kom hier dat ik u kus
3 De Aanslag
This was a pretty hard choice between Tongkat and Kom hier dat ik u kus, because they are both beautiful, wonderful novels in their own way. But Tongkat is just so special, I cannot really get my head around it (I will reread it in the near future).
Best non-fiction (whichever language)
1 Dit kan niet waar zijn
2 My Brief History
3 Gratis geld voor iedereen
Three widely divergent books, but all three good in their own way, and all three containing lots of personal notes/touches/stories of the author.
Best short story collection
1 Speaking with the angel
2 The Beautifull Cassandra
3 The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
I didn't read that many short story collections, and none of them were really brilliant, but still, a top 3. Also, my only Jane Austen reading of this year is in there.
Best WWI/II novel
1 The Narrow Road to the Deep North
2 All Quiet on the Western Front
3 Slaughterhouse 5
As always, I read a lot of War novels this year, and some stand out. The Narrow Road... won the Man Booker for a reason; it is a beautifully written, deeply haunting novel about WWII in Asia. Nr 2 and 3 are classics in the genre, and for a good reason. I've said it before, and I will say it again; if everybody would read these horribly fantastic novels, no one would ever start a war again.
Best comic novel
1 Shades of Grey
2 Funny Girl
3 Starter for Ten
I don't often read funny novels, but when I do, they're usually by Nick Hornby or Jasper Fforde, who find themselves high on this list. And then there's another Dave Nicholls, of course.
Classics (whichever language)
1 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
2 Brideshead Revisited
3 De Aanslag
Brideshead Revisited and De Aanslag are technically both also WWII novels, but when looking at them as classics, they somehow rank higher than some of the other WW novels. And the John le Carre novel just blew me away - I will definitely read more by him in 2016.
Most disappointing novels
1 The Rosie Effect
2 All the Light we cannot See
3 The Book of Lost Things
Not everything was good. I was really looking forward to The Rosie Effect, because I loved The Rosie Project, but this was one of the most disappointing sequels I've ever read. All the Light we cannot See won the Pullizer, but really, it's such a hyped-up American WWII novel, I couldn't care for it in any way. And The Book of Lost Things is one of the worst fairy tale retellings I've ever read. If you want to read a good one, go for The Sleeper and The Spindle (my only Neil Gaiman novel, which I couldn't fit anywhere else).
And to complete the list craze, not a top 3 but another neat list:
Authors I read more than once
- David Mitchell (3x)
- Dave Nicholls (3x)
- Rutger Bregman (2x)
- John le Carre (2x)
- Harry Mulisch (2x)
- Nick Hornby (2x)
Again, some of my all time favourites are also recurring reads. I could do you a top 3 of Mitchell novels (Black Swan Green, The Bone Clocks, Number9dream) and Dave Nicholls (One Day, A Starter for Ten, Us), but that would be stretching things.
Best English novel
1 The Children Act
2 Black Swan Green
3 One Day
Pretty typical, in a year where I'm reading only new novels, that my favourite novels still come from that group of male British authors that I've loved over the years. Must be my style. Also, the only Ian McEwan novel I read all year (and the first novel I read this year) is still a firm number 1. New to this list is of course Dave Nicholls, who I hadn't read before this year, but am now a really big fan of.
Best Dutch novel
1 Tongkat
2 Kom hier dat ik u kus
3 De Aanslag
This was a pretty hard choice between Tongkat and Kom hier dat ik u kus, because they are both beautiful, wonderful novels in their own way. But Tongkat is just so special, I cannot really get my head around it (I will reread it in the near future).
Best non-fiction (whichever language)
1 Dit kan niet waar zijn
2 My Brief History
3 Gratis geld voor iedereen
Three widely divergent books, but all three good in their own way, and all three containing lots of personal notes/touches/stories of the author.
Best short story collection
1 Speaking with the angel
2 The Beautifull Cassandra
3 The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
I didn't read that many short story collections, and none of them were really brilliant, but still, a top 3. Also, my only Jane Austen reading of this year is in there.
Best WWI/II novel
1 The Narrow Road to the Deep North
2 All Quiet on the Western Front
3 Slaughterhouse 5
As always, I read a lot of War novels this year, and some stand out. The Narrow Road... won the Man Booker for a reason; it is a beautifully written, deeply haunting novel about WWII in Asia. Nr 2 and 3 are classics in the genre, and for a good reason. I've said it before, and I will say it again; if everybody would read these horribly fantastic novels, no one would ever start a war again.
Best comic novel
1 Shades of Grey
2 Funny Girl
3 Starter for Ten
I don't often read funny novels, but when I do, they're usually by Nick Hornby or Jasper Fforde, who find themselves high on this list. And then there's another Dave Nicholls, of course.
Classics (whichever language)
1 The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
2 Brideshead Revisited
3 De Aanslag
Brideshead Revisited and De Aanslag are technically both also WWII novels, but when looking at them as classics, they somehow rank higher than some of the other WW novels. And the John le Carre novel just blew me away - I will definitely read more by him in 2016.
Most disappointing novels
1 The Rosie Effect
2 All the Light we cannot See
3 The Book of Lost Things
Not everything was good. I was really looking forward to The Rosie Effect, because I loved The Rosie Project, but this was one of the most disappointing sequels I've ever read. All the Light we cannot See won the Pullizer, but really, it's such a hyped-up American WWII novel, I couldn't care for it in any way. And The Book of Lost Things is one of the worst fairy tale retellings I've ever read. If you want to read a good one, go for The Sleeper and The Spindle (my only Neil Gaiman novel, which I couldn't fit anywhere else).
And to complete the list craze, not a top 3 but another neat list:
Authors I read more than once
- David Mitchell (3x)
- Dave Nicholls (3x)
- Rutger Bregman (2x)
- John le Carre (2x)
- Harry Mulisch (2x)
- Nick Hornby (2x)
Again, some of my all time favourites are also recurring reads. I could do you a top 3 of Mitchell novels (Black Swan Green, The Bone Clocks, Number9dream) and Dave Nicholls (One Day, A Starter for Ten, Us), but that would be stretching things.
Thursday, 31 December 2015
52 Books Challenge - December
So we'd already concluded that 52 books this year was out of reach, but for consistency's sake I'm keeping the title.
Anyway, the final books for this year are:
39 Look who's back - Timur Vermes
40 Kleine zeemeermin per ongeluk dood - Helena Hoogenkamp
41 The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
41 books in total, that makes 1 above the new goal I'd set myself, and 1 below the answer to everything, so good enough for me.
Again, a mixed bag. Look who's back is a satirical, but mostly very critical novel about Hitler waking up in our modern times and picking up exactly where he left off. Before you know it. he's out there preaching propaganda, but also going against some of the baffeling things of our modern times (why are televisions only showing crappy shows? Why does everything taste so sweet?). If you've seen the film - the novel is nothing like that, the novel is way more intelligent and subtle. It's scary, how sometimes when you're reading, you think 'yes, he's exactly right, why didn't I think of this before? Why aren't we doing anything with/against/for this?' and then realise that it's Hitler's opinion transposed to our times. Which is kinda scary on it's own, but even more so when it makes you wonder whether we're not all little racists/nationalists/fantasists underneath it all. So as a novel, especially a socially critical one, it works really well.
Then there was a very short novel (they call it a chapbook) by someone I actually know, who got published through the Wintertuin collective. It was nice, it was fun, but mostly because I know Helena personally. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone in particular, although of course if she becomes massively famous in a couple of years, they may become collector's items.
And finally, The Bloody Chamber, a retelling of fairy tales, mostly from the female perspective. These days, everybody is retelling fairy tales (Neil Gaiman in particular, but I also can't wait for the new Michael Cunningham collection of fairy tales), but when Angela Carter wrote these, it was still pretty new. I really liked some, because they were cleverly done and gave a possible new angle to a story you know very well, but I felt some were a bit over the top; pulling the whole thing completely out of context to make a point. Also, with the more famous tales, she left out the ending, sort of like 'everybody knows where it goes from here', and I'm not a big fan of open endings. Although it does make for a nice ending to my book list.
So, 41 new novels in a year. It was quite an experience - I've never read only new books for a whole year. There were several moments when I wanted to dive into something I've already read, just because those familiar stories are so much easier and faster to get through. With a new novel, you have to force yourself to pay attention, to read everything carefully.
Going for all new books did make me hesitate to pick some of the larger novels I've been wanting to read for a while, because the Discovery of Heaven experience taught me that one big one can set you back 3 novels in your count. So I've been saving some big ones (Middlemarch, The Count of Monte Cristo, Anna Karenina, The Fountainhead, Vanity Fair) for 2016. And at the moment, I'm reading two wonderful books, Grief is the thing with feathers and The Art of Asking, which I could have raced through to get 42 or even 43 books in 2015, but which I want to read slowly, to really get them.
A few weeks ago, someone posted a visualisation of how many things (pizza slices, visits to the cinema, etc) they'd left for the rest of their lives, taking averages per month or year multiplied by how many months or years they could statistically expect to still have. Given that I'm 30, and my life expectancy is around 80, I have 50 years of reading left. Optimistically, 50 years with 40 books a year makes for 2,000 books in total, This sounds like a lot, but looking at how many books I've probably already read, I'm way more than halfway through. And most years, I won't make the count of 40; if I read the 5 big novels I mentioned above next year, there won't be many others. So with that in mind, I won't be wasting my time rereading something like The Da Vinci Code, but really aim for novels I think will 'contribute' something. Which sounds really heavy, but it's good to think about these things, and make the choices you think are worthwhile.
Next year, I will again try to read only new novels, but I won't make it a hard and fast rule; if I feel like rereading Harry Potter for the tenth time, I'm going to. Because I missed the rereading, and some novels just really need to be reread. Also, I won't be setting myself any goals in numbers, because as I've noticed, it keeps me away from the really big classics that take a lot of time. But most importantly, I will read with my full attention, really getting into these stories. If I'm going to dedicate time to them, which I will, because I still love to read, it's going to be quality time.
And of course, I will keep on writing about the books I've read, because after reading, the next best thing with books is talking about them.
Anyway, the final books for this year are:
39 Look who's back - Timur Vermes
40 Kleine zeemeermin per ongeluk dood - Helena Hoogenkamp
41 The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
41 books in total, that makes 1 above the new goal I'd set myself, and 1 below the answer to everything, so good enough for me.
Again, a mixed bag. Look who's back is a satirical, but mostly very critical novel about Hitler waking up in our modern times and picking up exactly where he left off. Before you know it. he's out there preaching propaganda, but also going against some of the baffeling things of our modern times (why are televisions only showing crappy shows? Why does everything taste so sweet?). If you've seen the film - the novel is nothing like that, the novel is way more intelligent and subtle. It's scary, how sometimes when you're reading, you think 'yes, he's exactly right, why didn't I think of this before? Why aren't we doing anything with/against/for this?' and then realise that it's Hitler's opinion transposed to our times. Which is kinda scary on it's own, but even more so when it makes you wonder whether we're not all little racists/nationalists/fantasists underneath it all. So as a novel, especially a socially critical one, it works really well.
Then there was a very short novel (they call it a chapbook) by someone I actually know, who got published through the Wintertuin collective. It was nice, it was fun, but mostly because I know Helena personally. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone in particular, although of course if she becomes massively famous in a couple of years, they may become collector's items.
And finally, The Bloody Chamber, a retelling of fairy tales, mostly from the female perspective. These days, everybody is retelling fairy tales (Neil Gaiman in particular, but I also can't wait for the new Michael Cunningham collection of fairy tales), but when Angela Carter wrote these, it was still pretty new. I really liked some, because they were cleverly done and gave a possible new angle to a story you know very well, but I felt some were a bit over the top; pulling the whole thing completely out of context to make a point. Also, with the more famous tales, she left out the ending, sort of like 'everybody knows where it goes from here', and I'm not a big fan of open endings. Although it does make for a nice ending to my book list.
So, 41 new novels in a year. It was quite an experience - I've never read only new books for a whole year. There were several moments when I wanted to dive into something I've already read, just because those familiar stories are so much easier and faster to get through. With a new novel, you have to force yourself to pay attention, to read everything carefully.
Going for all new books did make me hesitate to pick some of the larger novels I've been wanting to read for a while, because the Discovery of Heaven experience taught me that one big one can set you back 3 novels in your count. So I've been saving some big ones (Middlemarch, The Count of Monte Cristo, Anna Karenina, The Fountainhead, Vanity Fair) for 2016. And at the moment, I'm reading two wonderful books, Grief is the thing with feathers and The Art of Asking, which I could have raced through to get 42 or even 43 books in 2015, but which I want to read slowly, to really get them.
A few weeks ago, someone posted a visualisation of how many things (pizza slices, visits to the cinema, etc) they'd left for the rest of their lives, taking averages per month or year multiplied by how many months or years they could statistically expect to still have. Given that I'm 30, and my life expectancy is around 80, I have 50 years of reading left. Optimistically, 50 years with 40 books a year makes for 2,000 books in total, This sounds like a lot, but looking at how many books I've probably already read, I'm way more than halfway through. And most years, I won't make the count of 40; if I read the 5 big novels I mentioned above next year, there won't be many others. So with that in mind, I won't be wasting my time rereading something like The Da Vinci Code, but really aim for novels I think will 'contribute' something. Which sounds really heavy, but it's good to think about these things, and make the choices you think are worthwhile.
Next year, I will again try to read only new novels, but I won't make it a hard and fast rule; if I feel like rereading Harry Potter for the tenth time, I'm going to. Because I missed the rereading, and some novels just really need to be reread. Also, I won't be setting myself any goals in numbers, because as I've noticed, it keeps me away from the really big classics that take a lot of time. But most importantly, I will read with my full attention, really getting into these stories. If I'm going to dedicate time to them, which I will, because I still love to read, it's going to be quality time.
And of course, I will keep on writing about the books I've read, because after reading, the next best thing with books is talking about them.
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